The present invention relates to a protective apparatus for electronic unit on space exploration vehicles capable of performing a space mission without a human intervention.
The space missions are, in general, conducted under harsh environmental conditions including sharp ambient temperature variation and rough terrain conditions on the planet in question, and are performed by electronically controlled unmanned space exploration vehicles that do not require an intervention by a remote human operator. Such space exploration vehicles are equipped with a plurality of sensors to detect environmental conditions, and an electronic unit to navigate the space exploration vehicle to the destination while preventing the damage to the space exploration vehicle based on the information from the plurality of sensors.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,839 discloses a navigation module for a semi-autonomous vehicle that computes a local path towards the destination while minimizing damage to the vehicle associated with a local terrain condition, utilizing fuzzy logic with the features of a terrain within a range measurable by a sensor module as its inputs.
The prior art in U.S. Pat. No. 5,436,839, if applied to the space exploration vehicle, fails to protect an electronic unit on the space exploration vehicle against a vibration from a ground under a sharp temperature variation, due to its inability to take into account an effect of an ambient temperature to a plurality of resonance frequencies of the space exploration vehicle.